


Fresh Starts & First Kisses

by afteriwake



Series: From The Ashes [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Reichenbach Fall, Deception, F/M, First Kiss, Fresh Starts, Letters, Molly Hooper is In Love, Not Canon Compliant, POV Molly Hooper, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Rain, Reconciliation, Retired Sebastian Moran, Reunions, Talking, Touching, Wet Molly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 19:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15955883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: She'd fallen in love with him through letters after his fake identity was revealed to her. Now Sebastian Moran is in her sitting room, looking for a fresh start...something she's willing to help him get.





	Fresh Starts & First Kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> Another fic for Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Fall 2018! This one is for Day 2 (" _Scent_ ") and was requested by **Dreamin** with the prompt " _Sebolly. She smells like spring -- flowers, rain, and a fresh start._ " Enjoy!

It was raining, the day she came home and found her sitting room dark except for one lamp on near the chair where Seb was sitting. She hadn’t expected to see him...well, ever again, to be quite frank; after Jim from IT had been revealed to be James Moriarty, Mycroft had pulled her aside and shown her a list of names and a parcel of photographs and asked if she recognized any of them. Only one picture was someone she knew, someone else who worked at the hospital, had worked there since before Jim had made his move, an orderly named Jacob. 

In reality, it was Sebastian Moran, she had been told, and he was quite dangerous.

And he wasn’t currently in London.

When she’d had two and two pieced together for her, she realized “Jacob”...Sebastian...had been learning about her. IT would have a reason to come to the morgue, yes, but so would an orderly dropping off a dead body. And Sebastian would have no reason to be skittish of the dead like others were, not if he was putting bullets in brainpans.

But he’d been pleasant. Nice, even. She had considered “Jacob” a friend.

That actually hurt more than learning Jim was Sherlock’s arch-nemesis...and she’d slept with the man.

But there had been something about “Jacob” where she had known there was more to his story, and she’d hoped one day he might share. And then the letters came. Long, rambling letters reminiscent of the conversations she’d had with Jacob, and other things accompanying them. Pristine postcards with no writing on them. Photographs of exotic locales. Sometimes gifts, small and unbreakable, tucked into the letters.

She learned more about Sebastian each passing letter and wondered if maybe there was hope yet that her friend would come back.

And then there came the situation on the roof. Seb had told her there would be snipers, that was Jim’s motif. He would be hers and he’ be damned if she’d die by his hand or anyone else. She had taken solace in the fact that no matter what happened on the roof, she’d be safe. Once Jim was on her cold, metal table, a self-inflicted bullet to the brainpan the cause of death, she had expected the last tether to Seb would be gone, just like Jim, just like Sherlock.

So it was strange a week after Sherlock left her home to find Seb there, waiting.

“It’s done,” he said, the traces of his Irish accent coming through. That was a truth he’d tried to keep covered as “Jacob” but she rather liked it.

“What is?” she asked, sitting in the dark nearby him.

“My role in everything. I’ve told the elder Holmes everything I know, given Sherlock as much useful information as I can. He’ll need it, with what he’s doing. I have...a fresh start, I suppose.”

“Good,” she said, giving him a faint smile. She knew she was wet and cold from the chill of the rain and a busted umbrella, but there was a spark in the air, that she should try and tend to. “Do you have a place to stay?”

“Not really,” he said. “I have places, but none are particularly safe at the moment, not with my having defected from the organization.”

“Mycroft has more than enough people watching m home, inside and out,” she said. “Stay here. Let me make you dinner and just...relax. Take a moment to savor that you’re finally out, and for good.”

He barked out a short but amused laugh. “Nothing about me is good, lass. I’m not built that way.”

“I think you’d be surprised, Seb.” She got out of the seat and moved to the chair he was occupying, sitting on the arm and reaching to turn his face to look up at her. “Remember, I’ve read your letters. There’s good in your heart. You just need to cultivate it. Nurture it.”

“Like flowers?” he asked.

“I suppose, yes,” she said with a nod.

“You always smell like lilac and honeysuckle when you aren’t at your post,” he said. “And even when you are there’s faint traces there.”

“Lilac body wash, honeysuckle shampoo,” she said with a smile.

“And now you smell like rain. Cool...crisp...”

“Well, I’m soaked to the bone,” she said with a soft chuckle, caressing his face, trying to get him to realize if he wanted it, if he wanted her, he could have her right then, right there, however he wanted. She had fallen in love with a man through letters and here he was in the flesh, inches away. If only…

“And a fresh start,” he murmured before leaning in and letting his hand cradle the back of her head to pull her in for a kiss. She sighed happily into his mouth and let him pull her off the arm of the chair into his lap as the kiss got more heated.

She’d help him nurture the goodness in him, she thought as her hand went to his shirt hem and she lifted it, taking in his scent of musk and sandalwood and a trace of gun oil. Yes, she’d nurture it until Seb himself knew just how good he could be.


End file.
